gramsci
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About gramsci from Auckland
Paul McLaney's debut album Permanence is the result of a year of self-imposed musical reassessment and experimentation. After starting his musical career in Dunedin (an essential element to any New Zealand guitar fiend worth their salt) McLaney released Pedestrian in 1997 and The Prayer Engine (with The Avalanche Trio) in 1998. Now operating under new moniker Gramsci (the name is taken from an infamous Italian political philosopher) McLaney has hooked up with local producer (not the Englishman of the same name) David Holmes to create an album that stems from folk rock roots. His sound is reminiscent of early 70's renegade Nick Drake, recent D.I.Y guy David Gray, even a little Brian Ferry, but he also lets technology eat away at the edges, with beeps and loops invading his sound to create a greater sense of space. From the rolling, throwaway mantra of first single Easy to the ethereal, confessional Masonry Angels, McLaney has fulfilled a promise that his earlier work suggested. It's stopping music lovers in their steps to take a harder, longer look.
Mclaney confesses his task is simple: the nature of his songs are still life, straight to the core of our emotional entanglements. "Songs will always be songs" he says after his recent release party for Permanence. No analysis of guitar vs electronic music will ever eliminate the human element of the song: music speaks to people in a way no other art form can. Take Coldplay, it's fresh because it's honest and emotional, it's not dressed up. I'm trying to do a similar thing; honest, unashamedly beautiful music that people can come and wash away their week with."
While McLaney remains independent, the album is released under the wing of Kog Transmissions and distributed through Zomba records, a relationship McLaney has thought carefully about. "I chose Gramsci as a name primarily because I like the sound of the word and also the thoughts of the man himself. His major insight was that revolution isn't an event, it's a process that takes place within the existing systems. If you want to change something you go into the belly of the beast and change from within. So Gramsci is a wry angle on the nature of the record industry. If you want to get your music out there, you've got to play the game."
While Permanence is certainly no revolution, it is a fine consolidation of observations of today's world. As McLaney sings in Give Me Strength, ÔHope is a prayer and prayer is a heart in pilgrimage'. He wants to take you on a journey, but it's not all self reflection and navel gazing. As McLaney is the first to admit, it's dangerous to take it all too seriously. "When I'm performing and speaking to the crowd I just try to be relaxed and say whatever is in my head. You don't have to be profound, I don't have to dispense knowledge from behind the microphone. I'm not a yogi, I'm just a singer sitting there pounding his guitar, with three chords and the truth," he laughs. "Well, it's about 19 chords actually."
With potential distribution deals to the U.K., Sweden, Norway, and elsewhere in the pipeline and at the tail end of a nationwide tour with Lucid 3, McLaney is happy with the lay of the land and the shape of things to come. When it all gels, like his first single says, "it's so easy, easy, easy."
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